"As East and West Met in God's Own
Country: Encounter of Western Pentecostalism with Native Pentecostalism in
Kerala"[1]

By

Paulson Pulikottil

Introduction

During 1920s in the Southern State of
India called Kerala, Pentecostalism from the West had the opportunity to meet
the home grown brand of Pentecostalism. This encounter has some significant
lessons for Pentecostal churches and missions agencies, particularly in their
relationship with native churches and organisations. This case study of the
encounter between western Pentecostalism and the indigenous Pentecostalism also
illustrate the use of insights from postcolonial theory and historiography.[2]

Postcolonialism

A postcolonial approach to
historiography is different from traditional approaches in its content and as
well as its perspective. A postcolonial approach has a distaste for grand
narratives instead it believes in locality and historical particularity. Those
who use this approach try to construct more limited and specific accounts of
particular events and incidents, stressing the fact that each episode has a
local and particular colour. This approach thus ensures a place for those who
are not given their due place in history.[3]

A postcolonial approach to history is
also different in its perspectives. A postcolonial approach to history is
considered as "history from below" or "voices from the edges". It tries to
reconstruct history from the perspective of those who are left out by
traditional histories or those who were not given their due place in history.
This is what qualifies the Subaltern Studies project to be called a postcolonial
approach.[4]

Another important dimension is that it
provides categories to understand relationships between dominant groups and the
subalterns, those who have placed themselves at the centre of history and those
who are pushed to the periphery.

Postcolonialism and Pentecostal Studies

What relevance does the postcolonial
approach have to Pentecostal studies?

First of all, it would help us to
recover Pentecostal history which has not found a place in the grand narratives.
Pentecostalism is (still) the religion of the subalterns in most parts of the
world; they are not the subjects of their history. It remains an undisputed fact
that in the grand narratives that the historians belonging to the historical
churches created, Pentecostalism has not been given due recognition. The elitist
historiography presented by the groups that are dominant either by their place
in history or political or economic advantage, Pentecostalism and especially
Pentecostalism in the non-western cultures did not get the due place.

Secondly, it promises a deeper
appreciation of the work of the Holy Spirit irrespective of the limits of time
and space. The work of the Holy Spirit is universal and it is not limited to any
place or time. The postcolonial historiography does help us to look at
particular historical events from the perspectives of the natives. Pentecostal
histories that are Euro-centric in nature describes Pentecostal history
beginning with the Topeka revival and gaining momentum at the Azusa Street
Mission and spreading all over the world. The following quotation illustrates
this attitude. While introducing the article on how Pentecostalism came to city
of Calcutta in India, the editor comments:

Pentecostal
church history has revealed that a common thread runs from Azusa Street through
contemporary pentecostal denominations and their missionary expansion.[5]

Such a conviction does not allow us to
explore the possibilities of the work of the Holy Spirit in the rest of the
world and the ways in which people in various parts of the world responded to
its manifestation.

Thirdly, it helps us to explore voices
from the contact zones of West and East or the intersection of their spaces.
Pentecostalism in the present forms made its appearance either in the last phase
of European colonialism or at the dawn of the emergence of new nation states. In
other words, Pentecostal missionaries entered the territories which had been
colonial contact zones for centuries. How did the natives respond, what sort of
resistance and acceptance did they receive from these natives who have already
been through political, economic and sometimes even ecclesiastical domination?
This would help us to learn some useful lessons for enriching relationship
between East and West. "As East is far from the West…" the Psalmist says, but on
Pentecost, East and West were made to meet each other through the confession
"One God, One Baptism and One Spirit." However, did the confession and
experience of the third person of the trinity erase their historical memories?
What happens when East and West so far from each other as far as political,
economic, social and ecclesiastical spaces meet is for us to explore.

I claim no authority or command over
Postcolonial theory and does not endorse it as beyond limitations, but only try
to explore its use for Pentecostal studies.

Short History of Pentecostalism in Kerala

Indigenous Pentecostalism in India first
emerged from the Syrian Christian community in the state of Kerala. Its History
is very much tied to the history of Christianity in Kerala. Christianity in
Kerala claims its origin in AD 52 when the Apostle Thomas arrived and preached
the gospel to Jews and the native high caste Bhramins.[6]
In addition, there were evidences of migrations of Christians from Syria in the
fourth century and the eighth century to Kerala.[7]
However, there was an ancient Christian community in Kerala which claimed its
ecclesiastical allegiance to the Syrian Orthodox Patriarch in the Middle East.
The community, though now divided into two factions, one in allegiance to the
Patriarchate in Damascus and one in India continues in the same ecclesiastical
and liturgical traditions.

The three stalwarts of native
Pentecostalism in Kerala and host of their leaders and laymen came from this
community. Pastor K. E. Abraham co-founder and President of Indian Pentecostal
Church until 1974 was raised in order to become an Syrian orthodox priest.
Another co-founder, Pastor P. M. Samuel, and the first President of Indian
Pentecostal Church of God received training to become an Orthodox priest in
their seminary. And another founder, Pastor K. C. Cherian, was a teacher in the
church-run school and active in the church activities.

The Syrian Christian community had
recorded instances of revivals since the second half of 19th century.
Edwin Orr describes how, as a result of these revivals new groups professing
evangelical faith emerged from among the Syrian Christian community.[8]
The first was the reformed Syrian church called Mar Thoma Church and then a
movement called Viyojitha Prasthanam (literally translated as the Separatist
Movement) which can be rendered as the Holiness Movement. One stream of the
Holiness movement under the leadership of noted Malayalam poet K. V. Simon ended
up in the Christian Brethren and the other led by K. E. Abraham in
Pentecostalism later.

K. E. Abraham, a leader in the Holiness
movement who had been in alliance with Church of God (Anderson) was baptised in
the Holy Spirit in April 20, 1923 in a meeting held by some native believers who
believed in the baptism of Holy Spirit and tarried for it. This is a turning
point in the history of Syrian Christians in Kerala. The following years saw a
great number of prominent Syrian Christian leaders embracing Pentecostal faith.
K. C. Cherian, another school teacher and a former colleague of K.E. Abraham
joined the folds of Pentecostals in November 1924. P. T. Chacko became a
Pentecostal believer in 1925 while he was a college student.

Pastor K. E. Abraham was leading a
denomination called Independent Separatist (Holiness) Church since 1918 but was
deserted by most of his followers for his doctrinal position on the Holy Spirit.
He founded the South India Pentecostal Church of God with the "faithful remnant"
of his group who stood with him. In 1924 the Syrian Christian leaders who have
been working independent of each other formed what was known as the South India
Pentecostal Church of God (SIPCG). This can be considered as the first
indigenous Pentecostal denomination in India, now known as the Indian
Pentecostal Church of God.

Arrival of Western Pentecostalism

The Pentecostal message from the West
arrived in Kerala in 1909 through the visit of George Berg. This American
missionary of German descent arrived in Banglore in 1909 and preached in a
Brethren convention in Kerala.[9]
Berg visited Kerala again in 1910 but he had to confront tremendous opposition
from the Brethren missionaries forcing him to organise meeting on his own.
Berg's third visit to Kerala was in 1911 in the company of an Indian missionary
called Charles Cummins, and two Brethren expatriate missionaries Aldwinkle,
Bouncil, et. al who received the baptism in the Holy Spirit in the meetings of
Thomas Barrett. However, the first Pentecostal congregation was formed through
the efforts of Berg in Kerala only in 1911. This was among first generation
Christians. Berg was the first missionary to reach out to the natives who did
not speak English. Otherwise, Pentecostal (foreign) mission was limited to
people of foreign origin who spoke English.

The next key player is Robert F. Cook
who came to India in 1912 following the trails of Berg. Some of the
congregations that Berg had founded joined the mission of R.F. Cook. At this
stage, Cook was assisted by the former colleagues of Berg who were expatriate
missionaries. Cook was able to establish many churches particularly among the
low caste Hindus and Christians in Kerala. During his early days of mission work
in India, Cook was an independent. Later R.F. Cook had become a missionary
affiliated with the Assemblies of God in U.S.A. Until 1926 R. F. Cook was
leading a new Pentecostal denomination by the name South India Full Gospel
Church (SIFGC).

Next in the line was Ms. Mary Chapman
who came to India as the missionary of Assemblies of God in the US in 1915.
However, she was not involved in Kerala actively until 1921 since she stayed in
Madras and only did itinerary work in South Kerala.

The work of western missionaries was
mainly evangelistic. They reached out the non-Christian (mainly low caste
Hindus) and Christians who are the products of Western missionary efforts during
the colonial period. However, their impact on Syrian Orthodox Christians was
very low.

Their influence on the Spiritual
formation of the leaders of the native movements was also very minimal. Pastor
K. E. Abraham co-founder of Indian Pentecostal leaders and the first to receive
baptism in the Holy Spirit describes the two leading figures of Western
Pentecostalism, namely Ms. Chapman and Rev. Cook only after he received
Pentecostal experience.[10]

The Meeting of East and West

In 1923, there were three important
Pentecostal movements in Kerala, the indigenous movement by the name, South
India Pentecostal Church of God, Assemblies of God under the leadership of Mary
Chapman and South India Full Gospel Church under the leadership of R. F. Cook.
In 1926, South India Pentecostal Church of God and South India Full Gospel
Church merged to form, Malankara Pentecostal Church with R. F. Cook as President
and K. E. Abraham as Vice-President. However, this did not last long; in 1930
January 30, Malankara Pentecostal Church of God was split to SIPCG and SIFCG
again.

This split was a rebellion of sort and a
very adventurous decision. The native leaders were very much dependent upon the
financial support that was extended by the western missionary. Financial and
spiritual support from the western missionary was very crucial because as they
embraced Pentecostal faith, they were ostracised by their own community and also
had to relinquish their own ancestral property. Though, penniless and socially
and economically vulnerable the native leaders did take a decision to part ways
with the western missionary.

The native leaders’ version of the
conflict is reflected in various articles, leaflets and the autobiography of
Pastor. K. E. Abraham. The native leaders described their experience of the
western missionaries as "being under the yoke of slavery", and "surrendering the
freedom", and their work as "building for money" in the manner of "those who are
employed by the state." Their denial of financial support was described as
refusing to drink "the milk of the white cow". In clarifying their position
expressions like "autonomy of native churches" and "independence" etc were
common.

Response of Indigenous Pentecostalism

I would like to examine three important
sources that reflect the relationship and attitude of the native Pentecostal
leaders towards the western Pentecostal missionary. The first is a speech made
by Pastor K. E. Abraham in 1938 to a meeting of the representative of IPC
Congregations. The second is a short history of Pentecostalism titled, "Early
Years of I. P. C." and the third is the autobiography written by K. E. Abraham.

The "Early Years of I. P. C." was
written by K. E. Abraham in 1955. Whether he realised it or not it was published
on the 25th anniversary of the native Pentecostal leaders parting way
with the missionaries from Azusa street! The purpose of this narrative is very
clearly stated in the introduction as:

The purpose of
the publication of this book is that, those who have come to the Pentecostal
fellowship recently and those youngsters who belong to the second generation of
Pentecost must know about the details of early days Pentecostal ministry.[11]

K. E. Abraham, the co-founder of the
Indian Pentecostal Church of God, was the first to come up with an autobiography
as well. Published in 1965 and entitled Humble Servant of Jesus Christ,
it gives useful insights into how the native perceives himself and the alien.[12]
Though it is an autobiography, he claims that it is the history of the
denomination that he headed: "My history, it is also the history of India
Pentecostal Church of God."[13]

There are three important aspects of the
natives' response to the western missionary in these narratives.

Insurgencies and consciousness

I follow the lead of Ranajit Guha in
exploring the reasons for such responses. In his studies on peasant insurgencies
in India, Guha has pointed out that the reasons for rebellion should not be
sought in external factors but in the consciousness of the native.[14]
He goes on to say that there are six elementary aspects of this consciousness:
negation, ambiguity, modality, solidarity, transmission and territoriality. The
fourth of these namely solidarity which I would like to pay special attention to
is explained by Chatterjee as the,

…the
self-definition of the insurgent peasant, his awareness of belonging to a
collectivity that was separate from and opposed to his enemies, lay in the
aspect of solidarity.… Often it was expressed in terms of ethnicity or kinship
or some such affinal category. Sometimes one can read in it the awareness of a
class.[15]

Chatterjee also suggests that this
consciousness must have a history which he describes as,

Their experience of varying forms
of subordination, and of resistance, their attempts to cope with changing forms
material and ideological life both in their everyday existence and in those
flashes of open rebellion, must leave their imprint on consciousness as a
process of learning and development.[16]

It is thus important to explore the
history of this consciousness of the native leaders in order to understand this
particular historical incident.

Consciousness of the Pentecostal Leaders

One important aspect of this
consciousness of the native is the fact that they are Syrian. This Syrianness is
evident in various auto-ethnographic remarks found in these narratives,
especially in the autobiography of Pastor K. E. Abraham. It is evident in his
description of his birth, education, marriage of his brother and his own. In all
these the leaders of native Pentecostalism imaged themselves as Syrian
Christians. The Syrian historical consciousness is evident in his comment on
this issue where he draws on the analogy of the relationship between the Roman
Catholic Church and the Syrian Orthodox Church:

Everybody knows
that the Syrian community in Malankara was absorbed in the Roman Church for
about fifty years in the seventeenth century and it came to its former state
through the crooked cross resolution by rejecting the relationship to the Roman
church. This does not mean that the Malankara church was founded after the
resolution of crooked cross. Similarly, Indian Pentecostal Church of God had
allied with the movement led by pastor Cook for a period of three years.[17]

This Syrian consciousness of the native
has influenced their imaging of the missionary; a fact of which the missionaries
from the West were totally uninformed.

Assertion of Syrianness

The Syrian church always had an openness
to the brethren from overseas. However, they did not allow the brethren from
overseas to invade their cultural, social and ecclesiastical spaces. I would
like to illustrate this with two examples from outside the realm of and prior to
the advent of Pentecostalism in India.

As India became a British colony,
evangelical missionaries from the various European countries entered the scene
in Kerala. The Syrian metropolitans did encourage the missionaries to preach in
their churches as long as they did not interfere with their own traditions and
liturgical practices. However, they did control their activities. The
cooperation with western missionaries (mainly Anglican) went on in the area of
Bible translation, production of literature, and allowing missionaries to hold
evangelistic and revival meetings after the regular Korbana (liturgical
service) in the church. Metropolitan Mar Dionysius sought the help of Claudius
Buchanan to get the Bible in Syriac to be printed. In 1806 Buchanan got 100
copies of the Syriac Bible printed. These were the first printed copies of Bible
in Syriac that this community had. During this time Mar Dionysius also got the
Syriac version translated into the local language, Malayalam, and got it printed
by the help of Buchanan. Another metropolitan, Matthews Mar Athanasius
encouraged western missionaries to visit and preach in the churches. However,
this did not last long since the revival took dimensions that Syrian church
could not tolerate. In 1830 the Syrian Metropolitan Chepad Mar Dionysius
(1827-1856) prohibited the work of the western missionaries through an
encyclical.[18]
This did have its repercussions in the Syrian Christian community as a number of
enlightened Syrian Christians left the Church and joined the Church Missionary
Society. The major break came in about half a century later by the formation of
the Mar Thoma Church, a reformed Syrian church in 1876.[19]
The effect of this desertion and split is that the Syrian Christian community
could distance themselves from the western missionary. What was important for
the Syrian Christian is to protect his cultural and ecclesiastical space from
invasion than spiritual revival. Spiritual revival at the cost of ethnic and
ecclesiastical identity was not negotiable.

Another significant instance is the
alienation of the native leaders from the western missionaries in the
evangelical domain. The Christian Brethren movement gained momentum in Kerala
from 1897. It also commanded a good following and the founding leaders were a
German missionary by the name Nagel (originally from Basel Mission) and an
Anglican missionary by the name Grayson. Sometime in the early 1920's, the
Christian Brethren also faced a split. One of the native leaders P. E. Mammen
advocated that the native churches should not be controlled by the foreign
missionaries and began a movement for the cause of freedom of native churches.
Abraham mentions that he had published a number of leaflets to promote his view
that western missionaries should not have control over the native churches.
However, this led to a split in the Christian Brethren. The native leaders named
their group "Syrian Brethren!"[20]

The above two incidents indicate how the
consciousness of being a Syrian Christian superseded all other concerns.

Formation of the Syrian Consciousness

There are two aspects to the formation
of this particular Syrian consciousness and a third historical factor that
conditioned their imaging of the West. The first is the autonomy they enjoyed
while being Christians belonging to the Syrian Orthodox tradition and the second
being the high social status they enjoyed under the Hindu rulers. The third is
the affect European colonialism had on Syrian Christian community.

Ecclesiastical Autonomy

The Syrian Christian community in Kerala
belongs to the Syrian Orthodox tradition and they still maintain very lively
contact with their counterparts in the Middle East, particularly with the Syrian
Patriarchate of Damascus. From time immemorial, the Syrian Orthodox See in
Antioch has been the spiritual head of the church with administration in the
hands of the local metropolitans. The relationship with the Middle East gave
them an identity and determined their historical consciousness. However, this
contact with the parent church had a set back due to the advance of Islam to the
Christian countries of the Middle East in the sixth century but is revived in
the modern days.

Social Status

Historically, the Syrian Christian
community in Kerala enjoyed high social status as well. Around the seventh
century, the local rulers of Kerala (rajas) recognised Christians as a
higher caste and awarded certain privileges and rights. This in fact helped
Christians in Kerala to develop a sense of dignity and worth. The break up of
communication with the parent church in Syria helped in developing a sense of
independence promoted by the Hindu rulers.[21]
In the Indian society, which is caste-ridden, this social status was crucial and
had a great impact of their collective sense of dignity.

Mundadan comments:

Thus at the
arrival of the Portuguese in India towards the close of the 16th century the
Christians of St. Thomas were leading a life full of reminiscences of their
past, and enjoying a privileged position in society and an amount of social and
ecclesiastical autonomy. They had been leading a life at the core of which was
an identity consciousness which, if not expressed in clear-cut formulas, was
implicit in their attitude towards their traditions, their social,
socio-religious and religious customs and practices, and their theological
outlook.[22]

Syrian Christians under European Colonialism

This situation changed with the arrival
of Vasco da Gama in Kerala on May 21 1498. With the arrival of the Portuguese,
the Syrian Christians of Kerala found themselves slipping slowly to the control
of the Pope. In the year 1595, Alexis de Menezes the newly appointed Archbishop
of Goa, landed in Kerala in order to submit the Church in Kerala to the control
of the Roman Catholic Church.

The following statement by Menezes
betrays the domination that was planned. In a letter Menezes wrote to Rome in
1597 he said his aim was to:

…to purify all
the churches from the heresy and errors which they hold, giving them the pure
doctrine of the Catholic faith, taking from them all the heretical books that
they possess… I humbly suggest that he be instructed to extinguish little by
little the Syrian language, which is not natural. His priests should learn the
Latin language, because the Syriac language is a channel through which all that
heresy flows. A good administrator ought to replace Syriac by Latin.[23]

The Synod of Diamper which Menezes
convened on 1599 was successful in forcing the Syrian Christians of Kerala to
accept Portuguese domination. Firth points out that after the Synod, Menezes
even burnt a large collection of books and documents belonging to the Syrian
Church wherever he could.[24]

This was something that the Syrian
Christians who have been enjoying freedom and autonomy for more than sixteen
centuries could not stand. Revolt against foreign religious domination had
already began in 1595. This led to a large scale revolt in January 1653 where a
multitude of Christians took an oath to fight for freedom. In the revolt that
ensued many Jesuit priests were targeted. This is known as the "crooked cross"
resolution where they declared themselves independent of the Roman Catholic
Church.[25]

The freedom and the social status that
they enjoyed for two thousand years have helped the Christians to achieve
dignity and independence. The Syrian Christian community's imaging of the
Western missionary was conditioned by their experience of ecclesiastical
domination under the Portuguese rulers and Catholic church. Theirs was one of
ecclesiastical and theological domination from which they have delivered
themselves. While the Portuguese were still the political rulers, they made
their church ecclesiastically free! They imaged themselves as one who were
invaded and who freed themselves from the colonial powers.

There are three important aspects of the
native Pentecostal response to the western missionary.

Refusal to Reinvent the Holy Spirit

The first is their refusal to reinvent
the Holy Spirit in their contexts. The native Pentecostal in these narratives
makes successful attempts to snatch history from the Western historians by
guarding against any move to reinvent Holy Spirit in Kerala. This he does by
stressing that Pentecostal revivals regularly occurred in Kerala before Western
Pentecostal missionaries arrived.

In contradiction to what a
representative from the West, namely Edwin Orr, has to say about revivals in
Kerala is evident. Orr is wrong in concluding that until 1896 there had been no
'Pentecostal outpourings where individuals exhibited a profound conviction of
sin.'[26]
There are reports of the manifestation of the Holy Spirit in the second half of
the 19th century (1872 onwards). The revival movement led by Justus
Joseph (his English Christian name), a Brahmin convert to Christianity, was one
of that sort. The non-Pentecostal native historian K. V. Simon has noted that in
the services of this Christian movement there was revelation, dancing in the
spirit etc, though he is critical of it.[27]

Abraham begins his history of
Pentecostalism in Kerala by insisting that the revivals that took place in
Kerala in 1873, 1895 and 1908 have to be taken as Pentecostal revivals.

There were
three powerful revivals has happened in the Malayalam speaking land during M. E.
1048, 1070, 1083 (A. D. 1873, 1895, 1908).[28]
In all these three revivals people were filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke in
other tongues. However, those who had these experiences in those days did not
realise that they were speaking in tongues as they were endowed with the Holy
Spirit; they did not have sufficient knowledge of scripture in this matter.[29]

Abraham snatches history again from the
West by emphasising the Pentecostal revival had reached Kerala before the first
Pentecostal missionary from the West came. This he does by an indirect reference
that he had witnessed revivals before the advent of Pentecostalism in Kerala:

I too was a
participant in the spiritual revival that took place among the Christians of
Kerala in 1908. I was only nine then. ... I witnessed the power of God being
poured out on many people and as a result of this their bodies being shaken, and
they speaking with stammering lips. But I did not know what it was. However,
only after been obtained the Pentecostal blessing I came to know what it really
was.[30]

We have seen earlier that he had
attempted to exile the Western missionary from his own person experience of the
Holy Spirit by clarifying that it is after his Pentecostal experience that he
met the two Pentecostal missionaries from America.

Objection to Eurocentrism

The second aspect of their response is
objecting to Eurocentrism. Reaction against the Eurocentric presentation of
Pentecostal history can be dated as early as 1955 in India. This is twenty years
after the foundation of the Indian Pentecostal Church. In his work The Early
Years of IPC, Pastor K. E. Abraham, one of the founders of Indian
Pentecostal Church (IPC), struggles to clarify that his denomination existed
before the Pentecostal missionaries from the Azusa street established
Pentecostal churches in India. In describing the purpose of the book, he says:

Many people
think that India Pentecostal Church of God is formed after the break with Pastor
Cook. This is because of their ignorance of the early history of this movement.
Readers of this book will realise that this movement (Indian Pentecostal Church)
has been in existence under the name "South India Pentecostal Church" and for
over three years worked in co-operation with the movement that was under the
leadership of Pastor Cook and since the beginning of 1930 has been de-affiliated
from this alliance.[31]

Earlier in his presidential address to
the meeting of the representatives of IPC congregations in 1938 (eight years
after the split) he asserted that:

Those who
joined this fellowship recently may be surprised to know that it has been
fifteen years since this movement started. Many think that this movement began
after we left the relationship with Pastor Cook. It is not so! This movement was
founded fifteen years ago by those ministers and congregations who accepted
Pentecostal truth and decided to minister independently in central Travancore.[32]

He went on to assert that:

Since Mr. Cook
had convinced us that he is willing to work within the framework of independence
of native congregations, we associated our movement then called 'South India
Pentecostal Church of God' with his movement along with the local congregations
and ministers.[33]

He lists the number of congregations of
South India Pentecostal Church of God that they brought to this alliance and
goes on to conclude his speech saying that,

From this it
may be clear now that those who allege that Abraham and others ran away with Mr.
Cook's people have not understood the reality of the matter. It may be now clear
that it has been fifteen years since Indian Pentecostal Church began and has
worked in association with the ministry of Cook for three and a half years.[34]

This illustrates that the native who
already had experienced the West insist on being subjects of their own history.
This important aspect of the native is something that needs to be taken
seriously in considering relationships between West and the East.

Rejection of Colonial Mimicry

The third aspect of this response I
would call the rejection of colonial mimicry. Postcolonial scholars have shown
that colonialism has produced a class of interpreters between the coloniser and
the colonised. This is a class of people who are natives by birth and physical
features but in taste, opinions, morals and intellect are the colonisers. Frantz
Fanon uses the phrase, "black skin/white masks," to describe them and
V.S.Naipaul calls them "mimic men." This concept has been developed by Homi
Bhabha and others as "colonial mimicry." In colonial mimicry, the colonised
pretend to have become one like those who have colonised them. V. S. Naipaul has
described it as:

We pretend to
be real, to be learning, to be preparing ourselves for life, we mimic men of the
New World, one unknown corner of it, with all its reminders of the corruption
that came so quickly to the new.[35]

For the part of the coloniser, they want
to produce men who would resemble them in their tastes and morals, while for the
part of the native there is an attempt to wear the colonial mask, to be one like
the coloniser. Whatever direction this process takes in producing mimic men, the
coloniser is constant and the change is towards that constant centre.

Menezes has tried to produce such mimic
men in the Syrian Christian community in Kerala who would speak Latin instead of
Syriac and would become Roman Catholic in every way. The Crooked Cross
resolution has to be understood as a refusal by a certain section of the Syrian
community to become such mimic men. In this line of those who refused to do
colonial mimicry stand the Syrian metropolitans and the leaders of the Syrian
Brethren movement to be joined by the native Pentecostal leaders.

Conclusion

In conclusion I should add that
Pentecostal scholars from the non-Western countries need to explore ways in
which they can write the natives back into history and give them their due
place. I must also say that even in the West, where historiography is mainly the
venture of historians belonging to historical churches, Pentecostal historians
need to engage in reconstructing the history of the Christian church from the
edges.

In the light of the present study, I
submit that there is a great need to understand the historical consciousness of
the native. We need to ask what sort of historical memories do they carry and
form their consciousness of themselves and the Other.

Pentecostal historians need also to
understand the language of domination and control in the contact zones of
Pentecostalism. There are already rhetoric and discourse in place in almost all
countries which are developed as a results of their experience of colonialism.
In trying to communicate the gospel, it is important to understand how the
native looks at the Other. In India at least, Christianity and colonialism are
considered synonymous by those who advocate the Hindutva Ideology. Hindutva
reasons that Christianity was brought to India by the colonial powers beginning
with Roman Catholic missionaries who followed the trails of the Portuguese and
finally the Anglican missionaries during the British Raj in India. They allege
that the message and method of missionary work of the native Indian church is in
continuity with that of the colonial missionaries. For them, the native
missionary is just another mimic man of the colonialism.[36]

The Holy Spirit has been in work all
over the world. We need to continue to do research on non-western Christian
traditions to understand how they understood the work of the Holy Spirit and how
this would help us to better communicate the full gospel truth. I hope scholars
from other countries and cultures would find in this example from India, though
preliminary in nature, a stimulus for similar explorations.

[1]
Because of its scenic beauty , the Indian state of Kerala is described as
"God's Own Country".

[2]
Those who are new to Postcolonial theory will find, P. Mongia, ed.
Contemporary Postcolonial Theory, A Reader, (London: Arnold), 1996 a
useful introduction. Mongia has offered an introduction to the history,
various aspects and critique of Postcolonial theory along with selections
from the leading scholars.

[3]
A Postcolonial critique of traditional historiographic approaches can be
found in R. Guha, ‘On Some Aspects of the Historiography of Colonial India’,
In Selected Subaltern Studies(ed. R. Guha and G. C. Spivak; New
York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 37-44.

[6]
"Acts of Thomas" is written in Syriac and dated in 4th century BC
mentions that Saint Thomas, one of the twelve Apostles, went to India to
preach the gospel. See A.F.J. Klijn, ed. Acts of St. Thomas, (Leiden:
E.J. Brill), 1962 for an English translation of this work. Also see, A.E.
Medlycott,India and the Apostle St. Thomas, (London: David Nutt,
1905) . Though the work is described as apocryphal, scholars see in it a
second century tradition about the Apostle of Thomas.

[7]
For a detailed discussion on the various sources regarding the origin of
Christianity in Kerala see, A.M. Mundadan, History of Christianity in
India: From the Beginning up to the Middle of the Sixteenth Century (up to
1542). (Bangalore: Theological Publications in India, 1984) pages
21-66.

[10]
He mentions that it was two months after he received the baptism in the Holy
Spirit that he met Pastor Cook and this too was at the initiative of Cook.
It was after three months that he met Ms. Chapman. He devoted a section on
how he met the "Western missionaries." See, K.E. Abraham,Humble
Servant of Jesus Christ (Yesukristhuvinte Eliya Dasan), (Kumbanad:
Pentecostal Young Peoples Association, 1965) pages 86-87.

[21]
An anthropological study of the Syrian Christians is found in S. Visvanathan,
The Christians of Kerala: History, Belief and Ritual Among the Yakoba,
(Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999) . In this study Visvanathan brings
out the unique features of the Kerala Syrian Christian life, ritual and
beliefs and their relation of the Syrian culture to that of Hindu culture.

[24]
C.B. Firth, An Introduction to Indian Church History, (Madras: The
Christian Literature Society, 1968) 96.

[25]
Those who took a solemn oath to depart from the Roman Catholic Church and
fight for the independence of the Syrian Church tied a rope to a cross and
took the pledge by holding the rope. According to the tradition the cross
was bent owing to the force of people trying to hold it, and later known as
the crooked cross pledge/resolution.